Chapter 307: Chapter 303: Introduction to Imaginary Alchemy
Having confirmed the new ability unlocked on the fourth page, Perfikot’s attention naturally shifted to another matter, namely the new technology attached to the fourth page.
For Perfikot, the technology unlocked by the Jade Record each time has a greater impact on her than the abilities it unlocks, to some extent.
Just like the first unlocked Mechanical Logic, which can be said to be the key for Perfikot’s rise.
Though it seems now there isn’t much room to exploit it, that’s just because Perfikot hasn’t been focusing energy in that direction.
In fact, a technology as powerful as Mechanical Logic can be applied in many areas; for example, the large engineering robots in Perfikot’s plan must be driven by it.
Otherwise, hoping for a driver to handle controls—unless the driver had eight arms—would make it impossible to control the large engineering robots designed by Perfikot.
Of course, if not for Mechanical Logic, Perfikot wouldn’t have designed it that way.
As for using Mechanical Logic to control and manage the entire underground shelter, acting as a control terminal, Perfikot has this idea, but for now, it’s unnecessary.
After all, the more backward the technology era, the cheaper human labor costs are considered. At the current technological level, human management is more cost-effective.
Moreover, once the shelter is established, accommodating thousands or tens of thousands of people, using Mechanical Logic to manage would leave many people idle, becoming freeloaders.
This is utterly unacceptable to Perfikot, especially because such idle freeloaders would greatly become unstable elements, which is even more unacceptable to her.
Keeping people busy prevents idle thoughts, and when they’re fed and idle, they cause trouble. Therefore, people in the shelter can’t be too idle, at least not most of them.
Otherwise, it would be very unfavorable for management.
So, often, it’s not that manual labor can’t be saved, but that using human power is more cost-effective.
And Mechanical Logic has always brought such benefits to Perfikot, while the Catalyst and Flying Stone technologies are also capable of changing ages.
However, up to now, Perfikot hasn’t even fully mastered the applications of these two technologies, expecting her to make any significant investment in them is somewhat optimistic.
Especially since Perfikot has long clarified that her main goal is to cope with the impending winter of doomsday. So unless these two technologies are significantly helpful in dealing with it, she won’t overly invest in them.
Of course, these technologies emerged because of her ideas, so Perfikot is also seriously considering their implications for her.
Catalyst technology is considered necessary for her, as it can massively enhance steam engine efficiency at almost negligible cost, significantly improving current industrial productivity if used properly.
However, with so many projects at hand, Perfikot finds the application of this technology neither urgent nor vital, thereby giving it lower priority.
As for the Flying Stone, it is another case, a result of Perfikot’s inadvertent operation without understanding the Jade Record’s mechanism.
After all, she was discussing flying battleships with someone, and then suddenly this technology emerged; it’s simply a dream manifested.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with Flying Stone technology; strictly speaking, it could help with the doomsday winter, but it’s not exactly the technology Perfikot desires the most.
If she had a choice, she certainly wouldn’t have picked something requiring massive investment, only a superior replacement for Flying Airship technology.
Yes, in Perfikot’s eyes, Flying Stone technology is merely a superior substitute for Flying Airship technology.
It is valuable, but its value is just that.
After all, for Perfikot now, she genuinely doesn’t have much time, energy, and most importantly, resources to invest in this.
Manufacturing Flying Stones involves Imaginary Alchemy, which requires the Philosopher’s Stone as a base, an insurmountable technical limitation for Perfikot currently, so she can’t solve the manufacturing problem.
Without being able to mass-produce Flying Stones, relying on Perfikot to manually create them makes this technology rather useless.
In fact, for Perfikot, the greatest value of Flying Stone technology is proving the existence of Imaginary Alchemy to her, allowing her to break the boundary between reality and imagination.
It’s just that Perfikot has only held this technology for a few months, and she hasn’t fully figured out the thought process of Imaginary Alchemy, let alone research anything on that basis.
So overall, the Flying Stone technology indeed hasn’t made any particularly significant impact on Perfikot.
But this time is different because Perfikot had already clarified what she needed before entering her inner world, so the fourth page of the Jade Record just happened to display the technology she desired.
Imaginary Alchemy Theory, a form of alchemy derived from the Philosopher’s Stone, breaking the boundary between reality and imagination.
This is similar to the Mechanical Logic she obtained before; accurately speaking, it’s a foundation of alchemy, from which more can be derived and developed.
And at the end of the Imaginary Alchemy Theory provided by the Jade Record, a concept is proposed to bypass the constraints of the Philosopher’s Stone in some way, creating a brand-new Imaginary Alchemy from the impossible, turning impossibility into possibility.
This, of course, is extremely difficult. Even with the Philosopher’s Stone, Perfikot could only evaluate this final concept as a good idea after reading the Imaginary Alchemy Theory, but impractical.
Because it’s based on breaking the equivalent exchange principle with the Philosopher’s Stone, replacing missing materials in Imaginary Alchemy, wanting to bypass the Philosopher’s Stone equates to removing the most crucial foundation of Imaginary Alchemy, making the whole concept a castle in the air, how could it not collapse or even crash?
Yet Perfikot has to admit that this impracticality is precisely the original meaning of the word "imaginary" in Imaginary Alchemy.
After all, if everything starts from reality, how could impossible technologies be developed, turning things that shouldn’t exist in reality into reality?
Thus, for Imaginary Alchemy, this actually is a very fitting "imaginary" concept.
And for Perfikot, to know whether this can become reality is simple: didn’t the Jade Record’s newly unlocked ability "deduction" specifically emerge for this?